


Sibling Rivalry

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [81]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avenger Loki (Marvel), Avengers Tower, Awkward Flirting, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Pre-Relationship, Stark Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24728530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: When blowback from one of Loki’s fights with Thor catches you, he does what he can to make it up to you.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [81]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 8
Kudos: 273





	Sibling Rivalry

You knew that it was an accident. Everybody knew that it was an accident. Tony maybe made a bigger deal out of it than he should have, but that was kind of just who he was as a person. 

In a way, it was kind of your own fault? You’d been running on a treadmill in the gym when Thor and Loki had burst in, arguing passionately about something or other. You’d had your headphones in, so you couldn’t hear exact words, but you could tell that they were shouting at each other. They were fighting a lot lately, which wasn’t too surprising. This lockdown had everybody going a little crazy even in the Tower, which had once seemed to have endless space for all of you. You knew how out of control their arguments could get. When they came in, you knew that you should have quietly picked up your stuff and gone somewhere else. You were nearly finished anyway. But your own stupid little quirks made you stay on the machine until you reached the next mile, so you could have a nice even number. 

You did get a little bit stressed as the men brought their argument closer to you, but you forced yourself to push that aside. They were your teammates. They were your friends. As angry as they were at each other, they had to realize that you were in here. It was fine. You were almost finished with that last mile, and then you could go somewhere else and let this sibling rivalry play out. 

But then Thor pushed Loki. 

Loki reacted like a bomb going off, leaping at his brother in defense. Even this wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary. They could get physical sometimes, but that nearly always signified that they were coming to the end of their argument. They’d end up wrestling and, when one of them had finally thrown the other to the ground, they’d retreat to their own corners again. Loki looked to have the upper hand this time, grappling with his brother and forcing him backwards. You kept up your pace but yanked one of your earbuds out. 

“Hey! Knock it off, you two!” You didn’t really expect to have any effect on what was happening right now but you also didn’t want to watch your friends pummel each other. 

Your voice drew Loki’s attention, and he craned his head to look at you. But Thor took advantage of his distraction and pushed him, hard. He all but flew directly towards you, crashing against the treadmill and knocking you over. You swore as you went down, grasping pointlessly for anything to hold you up, but you wound up on the floor nonetheless. 

“My lady!” Thor had the decency to sound horrified, but you were pretty sure it was only because of you, instead of because of his fighting dirty. He hurried over to help you to your feet, but you pushed his hands away before he could.

“Worry about your brother,” you said. Your voice was a little sharper than you’d intended, but you made no attempt to soften it. He didn’t deserve that right now. “That was nasty and you know it.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Thor did indeed extend a hand to help Loki stand up, but he ignored it and pulled himself up on his own. Now you were the only one still sitting on the floor, but something was wrong. There was a dull but persistent ache in your ankle, which sent pain shooting up your leg. You pulled your sock down a little to inspect the damage. It was already starting to swell a little. Fuck.

Ignoring the princes, you yanked your sock up a little higher and struggled to your feet. You’d sprained your ankle before. Sometimes if you just rolled it, it would hurt for a few minutes but then it’d be fine again. Gingerly, you put a little of your weight onto that foot, but had to stop immediately. You hadn’t just rolled it.

“You’re hurt?” It was Loki. He reached towards you, but then jerked his hand back like he thought you’d knock him away like you’d done to Thor. Maybe you would have. It hadn’t been Loki’s fault that he’d knocked into you, but it was kind of his fault for fighting so hard with Thor in the first place. You shook your head.

“I’m fine. Are you okay? He threw you pretty hard.” Everybody knew that it was harder to hurt an Asgardian than it was to hurt a human, but you didn’t want the focus to be on yourself right now.

It appeared that Loki was no more comfortable with the attention than you were. He nodded without a word and stepped closer to you. After a moment, he offered you his arm. Unless you miraculously developed the power of flight in the next thirty seconds, there wasn’t much of a chance that you’d get out of here on your own. Accepting help from one of them was probably your only real option. You pushed your pride away and took his arm. Your first step was excruciating, and you gasped a little. Without hesitating or asking permission, Loki shifted to pull you closer to him and looped his arm around your waist. Somehow you knew to put your arm around his shoulder so you could lean into him for support. Loki said something to Thor as he led you out of the gym, but you were a little distracted by trying not to cry out. 

He got you to the elevators and pushed the button to call for one. “Where to?” His voice was grim. 

You really and truly were not ready to spend the rest of the day hiding in your room, but you also weren’t about to set yourself up in a common area so everyone could see and ask about your injury. If you went to the medbay, they could probably give you some pain meds or at least a bandage to limit the swelling, but surely if you did that, someone would want to know what happened. You sighed and ducked your head a little. “My floor, I guess.”

He didn’t reply, only helped you into the elevator when it arrived and pushed the button to take you to your floor. When the elevator lurched into action, you stole a glance at Loki. You were closer to him right now than you’d ever been before. You could see the perfect line of his jaw and the way he was gritting his teeth. “What were you fighting about, anyway?”

He looked at you, and seemed to be just as taken aback by your closeness as you were. You turned away quickly, trying to give him more personal space even as you leaned against him for support. “Nothing. It’s stupid.”

Surely that wasn’t _embarrassment_ you heard in his voice, was it? You smiled to yourself but made sure to keep your head down so he couldn’t see it. “Well, wait. Was it nothing, or was it stupid? How could it be both…?”

He was saved by the quiet ding of the elevator, and led you out and to your door. For the briefest of moments, you let yourself get carried away with the thought of him taking you to your bedroom, the thought of seeing him there so distinctly _himself_ in a space that was largely reserved for you. But then you pushed the thought aside and patted his chest in the middle of your sitting room. “Right here is fine.” 

But he helped you to your little sofa and guided you down onto the cushions. You reached to gather up the few throw pillows that decorated the space, hoping to use them to try to elevate your foot. Loki caught on quickly and took them from you to arrange them into as steady a tower as he could, and then helped your turn and then helped you lift your foot to place it atop the pillows. He let his touch linger for a few moments, closing his fingers carefully around your ankle. The pressure was a strange combination of bad and good—it was uncomfortable and made you feel the pain a little more distinctly, but you knew that compression was good for sprains like this. You drew in a long, slow breath and held it for a bit before releasing it. It was a good thing that the Tower was locked down right now, because there was no way that you’d be any good on missions.

“You should not have been hurt.” He sounded angry, but you didn’t have to look at his face to know that his anger was entirely for himself. And maybe a little for Thor. This was an apology, or at least as close as someone like Loki could get. You smiled at him.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” His skin was so cold that you could feel it through your sock. Was he okay? You held yourself back from asking him, though, because you knew he’d tell you that he was fine whether it was true or not.

“I’m the one who crashed into you.” He squeezed your ankle a little harder before pulling his hand away. You missed his touch the second it was gone.

“Well, sure, but only _after_ Thor threw you across the room like he was a fucking idiot. Don’t Asgardians have any rules about that kind of thing in combat?” You knew that fights between siblings could get nasty, but you struggled to remember ever seeing anything like that before.

He shrugged and took a step backwards. “The only rule is to survive.”

It wasn’t hard to see that he was growing uncomfortable. You hated the idea of being alone, and you were pretty sure that you could guilt him into staying here to keep you company, but the idea of that felt abhorrent. You’d be fine here by yourself. If you got really bored, you could call out to FRIDAY or something. So you gathered up all your internal strength and gave him another smile even though he wasn’t looking at you. “Thank you for helping me up here, but you don’t have to stay. I set you free now, my fair prince.” You loaded your voice with all the airs of some sort of fairy-tale queen and gestured at him with your hand. “Uh, just, maybe...steer clear of Thor for a while? I want to give him a piece of my mind when I’m healed, so...don’t kill him or anything.”

When he met your eyes, he looked strange for a moment, sort of hazy or confused, but your words must have clicked in his mind because he jerked his chin in a sharp nod. “Very well.” He hovered there for another moment, like he was trying to decide what else to say to you, but then took a few more steps backwards and headed for the door.

When you heard the elevator ding, the doors slide closed, you tried not to groan to yourself. Your phone was still in the gym.

For the rest of the afternoon, you mostly just dozed. You’d called out to FRIDAY once or twice, and you’d gotten her to turn on the television and flip through a few channels, but your brain was insisting that she was starting to sound irritated at being used for something so stupid, so you let it go. You hated lying here and doing nothing, but doing anything else would require getting up and walking somewhere, and you just weren’t ready for that. Your ankle was full-on aching now, a dull but insistent pain that was hard to ignore. You had bandages in your linen closet, and some over-the-counter pain meds, but...that would also require walking. So you stayed right where you were and did your best not to pay attention to your body. It’d get better in time. 

It was hard to know exactly how long you’d been laying there when you heard the distant ding of the elevator. Footsteps carried someone to your door, but they hesitated for a moment before knocking. “It’s open!” you called. It must have been plenty loud enough for them to hear you, because you heard them open the door and then close it behind them. You craned your neck to see who it was, and you probably shouldn’t have been so surprised to see Loki making his way back towards you. He carried a small tray in one hand and wore a bag on his shoulder. “Oh, hey!”

“Dinner from Maximoff,” he said, indicating the tray as he placed it on your coffee table. He shrugged the bag off and let it drop to the floor. “Supplies from Banner.”

“Eat,” he said coolly. “I know what to do.” The man—the Asgardian _prince_ —settled himself on the floor and set about untying the laces of your running shoes. Absolutely not. You tried to pull your foot away, but he caught it easily and gave you a sharp look. “Don’t you trust me?”

Of course he knew exactly how to get to you. You trusted him implicitly, just like you trusted all of the other members of the team. But, unlike the other members of the team, you...spent a little too much time fantasizing about things like running your fingers through his hair or stroking his cheeks. “You know I do,” you said softly. But feet were gross. You couldn’t inflict yours on him.

He eased your shoe off in a way that barely jostled your foot, and even managed to remove your sock with only the barest hint of pain. He pulled a roll of compression bandage out of the bag and wrapped your ankle quickly, efficiently. When he was finished, he fastened the bandage down and squeezed your ankle again. “Too tight?”

“No.” It was hard to keep all of the surprise out of your voice. “It’s perfect.” And it was. The pressure was already starting to make you feel a little better. “Thank you.”

He nodded quickly and reached to hand you the tray. “Eat.” He busied himself once more with the bag, which you were grateful for, as it made you feel less weird about eating in front of him. He pulled out an ice pack and a bottle of some kind of pills. The ice pack, he pressed to your ankle while he held the bottle out to you. 

“Oh, god, _thank you_.” You took it happily and immediately washed down a couple of pills with some water. Pain relievers. Over-the-counter ones, not the really heavy-duty ones they had in the medbay, but that was all you needed. You didn’t like how the hardcore ones made you feel, anyway. 

Loki watched it all with a careful eye. “You _are_ hurt.”

You shrugged and fidgeted a bit with your napkin. “It’s just a sprained ankle. Happens to everybody. Some rest, some ice, some compression, some elevation and it’ll be fine.”

“Mortals are so frail. I knock you to the ground one time and you’re so badly hurt.” He sounded guilty again. He wouldn’t look at you, but you didn’t need to see his face to know how the corners of his mouth would pull down a bit, how his brows would go heavy and his eyes a little bit duller. Your heart broke a little. You could tell him over and over again that Thor was the one who’d knocked you down, but he’d never believe you. 

“Listen.” Your voice was a little unsteady, but your cleared your throat and pressed on before he could figure out why. “I’m not going to be running any marathons tomorrow, but, you know, I couldn’t really have done that even with _two_ good ankles. I might be laid up for a day or two, but I’m fine. And Thor’s the one who knocked me to the ground, he just used your body to do it.” Knowing that he wouldn’t believe you couldn’t stop you from trying. You swallowed hard and smiled to yourself at your next thought. Ordinarily you wouldn’t have dreamed of saying it out loud to him, but maybe an afternoon of isolation and boredom had made you a little loopy. He seemed just off-kilter enough not to make a big deal of it. You allowed yourself to laugh. “Anyway, there are worse ways to sweep a girl off her feet.”

You could almost see him processing your words. When he did, he looked up at you quickly, and sharp eyes searched your face. You kept smiling at him. Realization dawned slowly in his eyes, and he...didn’t look repulsed. That was a good sign. He didn’t seem to be entirely sure how to respond, which you might have taken as a not-so-good sign if you didn’t see the way his lips started to curl into a smile.

FRIDAY interrupted. Maybe you deserved that for using her to channel-surf earlier. “Perhaps your visitor might be willing to retrieve the remote control from your television stand?” You’d never thought that a computer could sound so pointed, but there it was. 

He stood up immediately, taking care not to let your foot slam against the floor, and did indeed go over to the stand to pick up the remote. You finished eating and slid the tray back onto your coffee table just as he placed the remote onto the sofa beside your leg. 

“Um. Would you… Mind staying? Just for a little while? If you don’t already have plans?” It felt like asking too much. You definitely didn’t want to use his guilt, but you were also not looking forward to spending the rest of the night by yourself. “You don’t have to. I won’t make you. And I don’t _want_ you to stay, if you were going to do something else, but if you weren’t… I don’t really want to be alone?” Spoken aloud, the words felt absolutely ridiculous, and you felt your cheeks burning. He stood near the sofa for several long moments, long enough to make you want to rush to tell him to forget everything and to just go away and have a good night, but your tongue suddenly felt too large for your mouth. 

At long last, though, he ducked down a little to begin dismantling your tower of throw pillows. Most of them ended up on the floor, though he did hold on to a couple, which he placed in his lap. Then he patted the very top one with one hand and tried to reach for your ankle with the other. Without a word he was asking you to prop your leg up on him. Without a word, he was agreeing to stay. Your stomach did a flip and it was your turn to search his face. 

He didn’t look put-off. He didn’t look like he minded your request at all, actually. Warmth flooded through you at that realization, nearly enough to replace all of your self-doubt. So you did as he asked. He positioned the ice pack along your ankle and then rested his hand right above it. Something about this felt right. Was that just you? You kept watching him even as he picked up the remote again and flipped through the channels. If anything, he seemed almost...pleased to be here? Was that possible?  
A companionable silence fell between you then, broken only by a bit of dry commentary on whatever you were watching, or sometimes laughter. Some combination of the food, the meds, the ice, and his presence itself made the throbbing pain in your ankle fade from your awareness almost entirely. 

Here and there, you’d look at him only to get the feeling that he was already looking at you out of the corner of his eye. Each time, you wanted to avert your eyes but you forced yourself to hold steady. When you did, his smile grew a little bit wider. 

And each time it did, your heart skipped a beat.


End file.
